Baaa'd Sunset

Beautiful day here in Kintyre and spent most of it treating a fence prior to a new hut being erected next week. The down side of all this work was that by 7.30 I had no decent blips in the camera and had not yet had my dinner.

As there was still a bit of sun about I decided to drive over to the west coast via the forestry tracks that start at Brackley. It takes about 15 minutes and when you get to the other side you have a wonderful view looking over Ghia towards Islay where the sun sets. I was a bit late in arriving as the sun was about to set and I hadn't found a decent composition. Then I noticed 2 wee lambs at the side of the road with their mother in the field on the other side of the fence. The poor wee lambs were bleating away pitifully and the mother was making reassuring sounds that she hadn't deserted them.

I took a couple of quick blips as the sun was just setting with some sheep and lambs in the foreground. However, when I looked up I noticed one of the 2 lambs had squeezed through a gate into the field but the other one was running off in the wrong direction. What do I do? Try and get a better blip of the sunset in full colour or try and help the little lamb back into the field? Well for the next 10 minutes I was running up and down the side of the fence trying to coax the lamb back into the field. I had opened the gate a couple of feet and was walking behind the lamb towards the opening hoping it would go in. No chance. It walked round the gate and gambolled off down the side of the fence. I repeated this exercise 3 times, opening the gate further each time, but it refused to go in. I am afraid I had to give up as I didn't want to stress the poor wee thing any more.

By this time the sun had set and while the sky was still beautiful the best colours had gone. As I drove away mother and the 2 lambs were together, but with one of them on the wrong side of the fence. I am sure the farmer will sort things out in the morning. Now I know why shepherds always have a dog. You can't round up even a single lamb on your own!

I settled on this shot, even although there is some flare off the sun, as I liked the silhouette of the sheep with her twin lambs.